Earlier tonight after the last of the three cows had left the lab, I went ahead and placed the order for a new system to replace this one, a.k.a. Unlikely, which as I think I've mentioned before, is in the slow, painful process of dying. It is eight years old, so I'm not surprised. The one before this, Darkhold, only lasted five years before it had to be replaced so I guess I should be happy.

The new system will be a Dell Studio XPS 435 with a 1.5TB hard drive, 6GB SDRAM and a 23-inch widescreen flat panel monitor with attached speakers. Yes, I know, terribly exciting. 

I bought it through our company's discount program thinger and supposedly saved $500 by doing so, which is nice if true. I believe it is. Compared to Unlikely, everything about it is bigger, better and faster and yet, accounting for inflation, its price tag is smaller. The same thing was true between Unlikely and Darkhold; I paid about $800 more for the latter. These things really are getting cheaper and more hardy.

It'll be a couple of weeks, maybe three before the yet unnamed system gets here. So we're probably looking at the end of the month. Unlikely should be able to hold on till then. I hope.